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Abstract

Using home-built dedicated ray-tracing software, we simulate photorealistic images of sceneries in three dimensions including dielectric carpet cloaks – i.e., continuously varying refractive-index distributions that allow for invisibility cloaking of a bump in a metallic carpet. Results for the ideal and for a simplified cloak are shown. The presented material gives a visual and intuitive impression of the performance of different arrangements and might be ideally suited for communicating the concepts of transformation optics to the general public.

Figures (5)

(a) Artist’s view of the scenery. A virtual camera with large field-of-view images a niche in a museum with portraits of famous scientists representing geometrical optics (Sir Isaac Newton), wave optics & electromagnetic waves (Heinrich Hertz), and quantum optics & general relativity (Albert Einstein), respectively. The bump on the floor (green) and the boundaries of the dielectric cloaking structure (red) are highlighted. (b) Resulting calculated image for a gray floor (i.e., no bump and no cloak).

False-color images of the refractive-index distribution of the cloaking structure (see also floor in Fig. 1(a)) in the xy-plane. The index is translationally invariant in the z-direction. (a) Reference index n = 1.00 (compare Fig. 3) and (b) n = 1.20 (compare Fig. 4). (a) and (b) are identical up to a factor of 1.20.

Rendered images seen by the virtual camera of Fig. 1(a). (a) Metallic (hence reflecting) floor, (b) as (a) but with a bump whose edges are outlined in green (see also green outline within cloak in Fig. 1), (c) as (b) but with the cloaking structure added (top outlined in red). The index distribution corresponds to that shown in Fig. 2(a), i.e., the reference index is unity.

As Fig. 3 but for a cloaking structure with a reference index equal to 1.20. Unlike in Fig. 3, both (a) and (b) include a dielectric plate with the reference index of 1.20 and with the same height as the cloak. In (a)-(b) and (c), the tops of the dielectric medium and the cloak, respectively, are outlined in red.